


Pranking to Impress

by beyondthesunset



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fourth Year, Gen, James POV, James' Crush, Pranks, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 15:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14335605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondthesunset/pseuds/beyondthesunset
Summary: James and Sirius pull a great prank, but Lily seems to be mad for some reason.The moment James developed a crush on Lily (or at least the moment he realized it was there.)





	Pranking to Impress

February 1975  
  
James surveyed the lightly smoking hallway and grinned over at Sirius. Getting the armor to belch flames like that was the culmination of several months of experimental spellwork. When they set out to plan the prank they never expected it to be so difficult. There were already a surprising number of spells on the armor, some of them so complicated and ancient that even the combined power of the Marauders couldn’t figure out the first thing about what they might be for. Their own spells had reacted oddly with the others, hence the experimentation.  
  
“I suppose we should go,” said Sirius beside him. Peter and Remus had already run. Peter always seemed to fade into the walls with remarkable speed at the first sign of trouble and Remus had become much more cautious since the prospect of an appointment as a Prefect had been floated in the group. Remus had initially insisted that there was no way Dumbledore would make a werewolf a Prefect, but Sirius had told him to look at the other candidates. They had to pick a boy from among the fourth year Gryffindor, after all.  
  
“Hold on,” James muttered to Sirius as another unsuspecting group of students rounded the corner. A few of the students looked cautious at the sight of the two boys grinning at them from down the hallway, and the whole group seemed to clump tighter together.  
  
As they reached the center of the hallway the suits of armor that lined the walls on either side suddenly belched flame and began venting acrid smoke. This pyrotechnic display was accompanied by a burst of maniacal laughter; Peter’s touch.  
  
The group of students scattered screaming. They failed to notice that the flames only emitted a mild heat and didn’t burn anything. As they scattered down the corridor, James and Sirius burst out laughing.  
  
“Their faces!” Sirius guffawed.  
  
James grinned at him again. “Okay, now we can go.”  
  
James and Sirius turned sharply around only to find themselves face to face with Lily Evans, their fellow fourth year Gryffindor. James heard himself make a particularly embarrassing noise of surprise and attempted to school his features to look unruffled. Sirius would have probably laughed at James, but he too seemed to have jumped and squeaked. James ran his hand through his hair and went for a cool look.  
  
“All right, Evans?” The girl didn’t look impressed. They had somewhat of a friendly rivalry, however, and James found it important to not let the side down in front of her. Stiff upper lip, he told himself, in a voice that sounded like his father’s.  
  
“I am not all right! Did you just blow up those third years?”  
  
James and Sirius both glanced back toward the retreating students. “They still look intact to me,” Sirius shrugged.  
  
“Oh good,” Lily snapped not sounding pleased at all, “thank God for their fast reflexes.”  
  
“Oh, the fire wouldn’t burn them anyway. It’s designed not to,” said James, puffing out his chest. “Pretty good, no?”  
  
“That’s not the point,” Lily replied, looking annoyed. She stepped past them and started waving her wand at the suits of armor. One gave a small belch of flame that made her jump slightly. James and Sirius laughed but Lily ignored them, gathering her hair resolutely into a bun and raising her wand once more.  
  
“What’s up your bum?” Sirius asked grinning lazily at the back of her head.  
  
“No one got hurt, honest,” said James quickly. He thought it was rather a good bit of magic, but Lily seemed to be too hung up on the details to notice. James considered this completely unacceptable. He didn’t go to all this trouble to not impress the people whose opinions he valued.  
  
“What is going on here?” said a sharp voice behind James, “I had been informed that there was a fire.”  
  
Sirius and James jumped again. “Is there a Silencing Charm on this hallway? Honestly,” Sirius muttered.  
  
James turned toward the voice, a small knot of dread pooling in his stomach. There stood Professor McGonagall looking fierce. She was James’ favorite teacher and he was fairly sure she quite liked him as well, thought it was hard to tell, but she was still not someone to cross. Also, she had a way of telling him she was disappointed in him that made him feel disappointed in himself, a power that very few people possessed. He had thought of it as a mothers only kind of thing, until he came to Hogwarts and met McGonagall as well as Lily and his friend Remus Lupin. James suspected that Sirius and Dumbledore could probably make him feel that as well but fortunately they both seemed to agree with him that he was brilliant.  
  
“I’ve got it handled,” said Lily over his shoulder, “if I can just figure out what they did.” She waved her wand and there was a thrumming noise as the enchantment on one of the suits of armor broke.  
  
“Do be careful, Miss Evans,” McGonagall snapped. She drew her own wand and shook back her sleeves. Stepping up beside Lily, she began casting at the armor on the other side of the hall. As the two witches focused on their work, Sirius grabbed James’ arm gently and tugged him backwards. Moving as silently as possible, they began to back away.  
  
“Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, I am not finished with you,” McGonagall snapped without turning. “Leave that spot before I dismiss you and your punishment will become markedly more severe.” The two boys stilled. A moment later the thrumming sound of counterspells in the hallway stopped and Lily’s quiet muttering faded away.  
  
“That will do,” said McGonagall, surveying the armor. “Well done, Miss Evans.” Lily positively beamed, making James roll his eyes. He stopped quickly as McGonagall rounded on them.  
  
“The fire was not hot enough to burn.” It was not a question. The boys nodded.  
  
“It wouldn’t hurt anyone,” James supplied.  
  
“Just a bit of fun,” Sirius added.  
  
“I daresay the students who were caught in the middle of it would disagree,” McGonagall replied tersely, fixing James with a look that made him look down at his feet.  
  
“Sorry, Professor,” the two boys chorused.  
  
“An impressive bit of magic,” McGonagall added, seemingly to herself, before focusing back on them. “Do not do this again. I’m taking five points from Gryffindor for each of you and next time it’ll be detentions.” James let out a sigh. Ten points and no detention; it could be worse.  
  
“Miss Evans,” McGonagall continued rounding on the girl, “generally magic is disallowed in the hallways but in this case I appreciate your show of initiative. It can be dangerous for a witch your age to attempt such things unsupervised,” here she cast a look at the boys as well, “but you handled yourself well under pressure.” Lily looked pleased for a moment before McGonagall spoke again. “In the future however, consider cordoning off the area and calling a professor.”  
  
“Yes, Professor,” Lily said quickly, looking shamefaced.  
  
“Take twenty points for Gryffindor,” McGonagall replied, cause all three of them to look up at her, grinning. She surveyed the group for a moment and then gave them a tight smile. “You should hurry or you will not have time to eat lunch before your afternoon classes,” she said and then turned and swept away.  
  
The moment she was around the corner, James rounded on Lily. “If you hadn’t slowed us down we wouldn’t have been caught!”  
  
“If you hadn’t done it, you wouldn’t have been caught,” said Lily dismissively.  
  
James was drawing breath to reply when Sirius interrupted. “The way I figure it, Gryffindor came out ten points up. I think Jamsie and I are right heroes.” He grinned winningly.  
  
Lily grinned back, “You’re a credit to the school, you are.”  
  
“Do you think we could do it a few more times?” Sirius asked thoughtfully. “Gryffindor’s not too far behind Ravenclaw. It wouldn’t take long to catch up.”  
  
“How long do you think it would take McGonagall to catch on though?” Lily replied. Sirius’ face fell.  
  
“Right,” he muttered, “she’d probably put us all the way back into the negative as a punishment.”  
  
“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Lily agreed.  
  
James had been watching this exchange closely, being uncharacteristically silent in his consideration of human nature. “Weren’t you mad at us a minute ago?” He asked Lily, incredulously.  
  
She had the audacity to grin at him. “Oh that? I heard some people running to her office babbling about fire. I figured I could get there first, and be seen doing something when she arrived. I had to seem mad, you know?”  
  
“Be seen?”  
  
“Well sure, I want Prefect after all.”  
  
Sirius let out a slow whistle. “You should be in Slytherin.”  
  
“You don’t mean that,” James replied quickly.  
  
“You’re right. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone,” Sirius said, suppressing a big, fake shudder.  
  
“I’m going to take all of that as a compliment,” said Lily thoughtfully.  
  
“That was downright conniving, Evans,” James said, genuinely impressed.  
  
“Be honest, you only know what that word means because it’s something people call you,” Lily said quickly.  
  
“You mean like you and brownnoser?” he replied just as fast, prompting a laugh from Lily.  
  
“It was a rather brilliant bit of magic, Potter,” she replied and James’ heart sped up suddenly in his chest.  
  
“Hey, what about me?” snapped Sirius.  
  
“Of course, Black,” Lily replied, looking contrite, “please convey my compliments to Remus. I’m sure he helped. And Peter,” she added as an afterthought.  
  
Sirius made an injured noise but it was drowned in James’ laughter. He settled down and found himself staring rather intensely at Lily’s grin. It was a good grin. James lifted his hand to run it through his hair but Lily grabbed his wrist and looked at his watch.  
  
“McGonagall is right, it’s almost time for Herbology,” she turned to hurry toward the Great Hall. “Are you coming?”  
  
“Nah, we ate before,” Sirius replied lazily.  
  
Lily hurried away, throwing a “see you in class” over her shoulder. James felt himself raise his hand as if to wave. As Lily hurried away, he noted that her hair was still up in a messy bun, exposing the small freckles on the back of her neck, that where usually covered by her tresses. James filed this thought away for later, unsure quite what to do with it.  
  
“You okay, mate?” Sirius asked, peering at him thoughtfully. It was only then that James realized he still had his hand up and was staring down the deserted hallway that moments before had contained Lily Evans’ retreating form. He cleared his throat and put his hand town, turning to Sirius.  
  
“Sure, Black.” He tried for bravado.  
  
“Whatever,” Sirius shrugged. “Shall we go find the boys?” He nodded toward a tapestry, somewhat up the hallway, that concealed a secret passage which led to their agreed-upon rendezvous point in the Charms Corridor. James nodded without paying much attention.  
  
“That was brilliant,” he said thoughtfully.  
  
“Yeah, good prank,” Sirius said jovially.  
  
“Nah. I mean sure, but I meant Lily’s plan,” James grinned wider, picturing the smile she had thrown at him when she said the magic was quite brilliant.  
  
“Oh sure, she’s a sharp one.”  
  
“Brilliant more like,” James replied, “I think she’s more of a sneak than the lot of us.”  
  
“Steady on,” Sirius replied lazily, “I’m pretty sure that’s bad Marauder conduct.”  
  
“She’s brilliant is all I mean.”  
  
“I think you said that already,” Sirius replied, looking at James oddly. “Shall we go meet the boys?” he tried again.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it,” said James quickly. Sirius disappeared through the tapestry. As James made to follow him, he glanced once more up the hallway where Lily had gone, before shaking himself. She was quite good. He was pretty sure that she wasn’t allowed to become a Marauder but it was an interesting idea. He thought she would fit in nicely.


End file.
